Take A Chill Pill And Come Back Wittier Please
It's been a weird - mostly losing - month for Mark Latham. He was supposedly penning nasty remarks from a fake/anonymous cyber-identity. In common parlance, he was indulging in some sock-puppetry. When he was found out, he had to part ways with the AFR where he was a columnist. A lot of people are down on Mark Latham for all sorts of reasons so he is not a popular cause to back. You could easily argue (maybe not even argue, rather, simply state) that he was not a great cause even when he was going up against John Howard in 2004. Not only did he lose big in that election, he lost his footing in the world of Federal politics and scurried home to be a stay-at-home dad.
Since then, he's been the go to guy for acerbic take downs of politics-of-the-day. On any given day he would be dishing out commentary on just how awful these people were, regardless of party affiliation. Then he ran into some trouble dealing with feminists and couldn't quite contain himself.
It's quite strange just how much his own side of politics reviles him so much. It's almost unfair. There was time in the late 1990s when John Howard was trouncing both Kim Beasley and Simon Crean that it was clear that the ALP needed new policy ideas beyond the old protectionist, Union-driven rhetoric. He even fit a kind of ALP identikit. He was university educated, but from the Western Suburbs. He was seamlessly the product of Gough Whitlam's many reforms, and came to Parliament with a lot of ideas. He was part policy wonk and ideological warrior. Long before he became the Go-to-Guy for acerbic take down commentaries, he was the Go-to-Guy for intelligent progressive policy alternatives to the Thatcherism-Lite of John Howard's rule.
That's just a long caveat to say, yes I voted for him, and the ALP in 2004, and I have few regrets for doing so. If anything I'd castigate the electorate who chose to stick with Howard out of fear of the future. It can be a very stupid country with a stupid electorate at some times. Just look at 2013 that gave us the Abbott Government. The point being, there was a time the ALP needed this man. Now that things have gone horribly wrong, they may yet need this man; but he keeps disqualifying himself in the public view, from being that man.
Mr Latham told the audience he had taken pride in researching everything he wrote in the now-defunct column and no error had ever been found.
"None of these left feminist activists went to the Press Council to complain and seek any correction for anything I said that was inaccurate," he said.
He said there was now no outer suburban columnists in the Australian media with the last one - himself - now gone. But he said he would continue to express his opinions, but now unfiltered of the niceties of the Financial Review.
He said class politics was alive in Australia and while people had been happy with his past criticism of Labor power brokers, action to kick him off the paper started when he began "rousing the rich girls".
Mr Latham went on to say the problem with the "left feminist elite" was that criticism was seen as being derogatory.
"I am such a big misogynist that I decided I am out of politics, I'd stay at home to look after the children and support my wife's law career," Mr Latham said.
Mr Latham's address at the festival was supposed to have been on whether former politicians could write objectively on politics. Later in the talk, as the temperature in the room cooled a little, he spoke more clearly about being a stay at home dad, Tony Abbott and politics more broadly.
At one point he revealed he had lunch in Liverpool, Sydney with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in early last year to discuss a range of policy issues. He added he helped write some of Mr Shorten's budget reply that year, but there had been no more contact from mid-2014.
After the event the official Twitter account of the Melbourne Writers Festival said: "We're disappointed in Mark Latham's #MWF15 appearance today. Not the respectful conversation we value."And more's the shame really. He has a point to make but it is so nuanced it's not getting past the static of the knee-jerk press. The hard left feminists detest Mark Latham for being so blokey, they suspect he is centre-right in political alignment, disguising himself as a leftist. A lot of people are projecting negative notions at Mark Latham and quite honestly, I think they're more revealing of the accusers than the accused.
One imagines that at this point in his life where he's no longer running for office, Mark Latham would rather serve up his contempt unvarnished. And so it's become a weird media spectacle where people are ganging up on Mark Latham for what he is not - a contrite sensitive new age feminist - instead of the proud bloke with progressive politics from the western suburbs of Sydney. And Mark Latham to his discredit, fires back. His critics decry him for not being smooth like Kevin Rudd or not being a woman like Julia Gillard, or a winner like Paul Keating or political dynast like Kim Beazley. They accuse him of being crass and a misogynist as if these things are defining characteristic of the man. And that's from his own side of politics!
It's sad that the caricature of Mark Latham has reduced him to some kind of boofhead-of-politics. I'm sure the right in this country take great delight in his fall, because it validates their victory in 2004. A decade on, all it does it prove just how negative is the politics in this country. Put simply, we are far worse off.
Mark Latham for his part, really needs to go quiet for a while and sort out his PR. This brawling commentary persona simply makes him look worse than he ever needs to.